its complicated
by amy.x.anonymous.x
Summary: James Daniel Atlas never really fit in, not whith his family, nor his friends, but now he has the chance to start over, in odd circumstances, he meets his family again, will they patch things up? Atlashrike


James had always been an outcast in the Atlas house hold, for one, his brother's and sisters had been wanted by his parents, unlike him.

James was always a disappointment when it came to talent too, Samantha had her good grades, top in all her classes, Jess, James' twin, the one that his parents had wanted, was amazing on the violin, piano and guitar, even from a young age, Ben was a jock, captain of the football team three years running, and Riley was a computer wiz, he could hack into just about anything by the age of ten, and then there was James, little James Daniel Atlas, who liked magic.

At all the family get-togethers, thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Samantha would wow everyone with her latest amazing grades, Jess would move everyone with her latest composition, Ben would impress their uncle's and cousin's with his latest win in the football pitch, Riley would show off the new game he made on the computer, and James would sit in the corner, shuffling his trusty deak of cards.

Relatives would look at him and whisper, try to console his parents, ("you did so well with the other four, you were bound to have one failure") they thought that James didn't hear them, he did.

The black sheep of the family, that's how they described him, the one who got away, his parents had tried to disuade him from the magic, tried to set him on a more accademic course, it hadn't worked.

At first his siblings accepted the magic, enjoyed it even, but as time went on, as they got older they began to loose interest, they sneered at it, called it stupid, Jess stood by him the longest, but afew weeks into year seven she snapped "James, you need to stop with the magic, its for children, you need to do something real" she had told him, but for James, it was real, it was what he wanted to do, his parents had laughed at him for that

("Magic isn't a job, its a hobby, please, just try to be more like your siblings") at first they had been gentle with him, requesting that he stop, that he do something else, but as he got older, they got more impatient, it was exactly twenty-four days after his and Jess' tenth birthday that his father snapped.

They had another fight about magic when it happened, one minute James was yelling at his father, the next he was beeing slapped across the face, he stared at his father, expecting an emidiate apology, in stead his father sneered at him, "Magic is for children, its time for you to grow up"

But James didn't give up, he didn't grow up, he continued with magic, swearing to himself that he would make a job out of it, just to spite his family, however as the magic continued, so did the abuse, it was mainly his father, his mother would just sit and watch, chipping in hear and there, Ben would join the party some nights, when he discovered what was going on.

Then Ben started smoking, that lead to about a dozen cigarette burns, most were on his back, however there was one, one which Ben was rather proud of, that he acquired when he was fourteen, just above his wrist, a circular burn, that would still be extremely visible over fifty years later, James never wore anything that showed above his wrists again.

At seventeen James left home, despite being the younger child in the Atlas family, he was the first to move out, he became a street magision, like all the greats started out, simple tricks, but he always gathered a crowd, and every night he had enough money to stay the night in some crappy little motel and to have breakfast the next morning, by the time he was eighteen he had scrimped and saved enough to buy a small appartment in Chicago, and he started going by his middle name, Daniel, severing any ties he had to his family

Just before his nineteenth birthday, he was offered a professional gig, he did magic in small arenas, university's, with an assistant called Rebecca Liate, but Rebecca wasn't fun, she was bland, she was boring, then Henley came along, she was fun and she was flirty and the audience loved her, everything was great for five months, untill the trap door incident, causing Henley to leave and start a solo act, and causing Daniel to realise that he performed better alone, or at least with out an assistant.

So he went back to his roots, street magic, untill he had just turned twenty, a tarot card arrived, with a date, time and place on it, the lover, and the four horsemen were born.


End file.
